St. Patrick’s Day Party Guide

Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is on Saturday. If you’re hosting a gathering, Celebrity Party Planner Debi Lilly has some family-friendly ideas to bring the luck of the Irish to your St. Paddy’s Day festivities.

Decorations are one of the first things you want to start with, and DIY decorations are a great way to get family members involved.

Lilly suggests printing patterned papers, such as the ones off her website, A Perfect Event. With those, you can wrap them around any type of bottle or mason jar. The bottles or jars can be filled with themed straws, flowers or party props. Once finished, it becomes an instant centerpiece that’s also long lasting.

No St. Patrick’s Day party is complete without some chic shamrock cocktails — we dare you to try to say that five times fast.

Lilly recommends taking any vase from around your house that is large in size and using it as a punch bowl. To get the green river affect, you can use green soda, or, if you’re looking to go the healthier route, use a green juice. Now, if you’re after that extra focal point on your table, we’ve got you. Use a cookie cutter to punch out shamrock-shaped cantaloupe and honeydew. Add these to your punch bowl for a floating shamrock effect.

Onto some yummy treats. Now, we said family-friendly, so put away that Guinness and Bailey’s. For now.

Whip up a batch of your favorite white cupcakes, donuts or cookies. Then, using the morning cereal Fruity Pebbles, create rainbow stripes on top of your baked item. Lilly uses coconut shreds for the clouds at the end of the rainbows. You can also use a little tube of white icing for extra “glue” if need be.

You can also use those patterned papers from before and wrap them around ice cream cones. Pro tip: Fill the cones not with ice cream, but with gold candies of your choosing to create your very own pots of gold.

Details such as these can help pave the way for a fun celebration of the holiday. Plus, isn’t it time we did better than a green beer?